Honeyed Death
by RavenousMuse
Summary: Sookie's finally convinced Quinn to stop saying 'babe.' Things should be good, right? What happens when a certain blonde stranger gives her a night she'll never forget? Lets hear Sookie's side of things...I know u hate Q, but E is worth wait! AU S/E S/Q
1. Chapter 1

Hi my friends I am off of my self-imposed hiatus. Hope you don't hate me! Let me know if you still care about Dead Silence and want me to finish. Otherwise, it is off to the races with this new one. Trying something new in this fic: a story in a story. I hope you enjoy… fingers crossed! Oh, and yes, there will be a Viking playing a major role in this. Vamp or Human, I haven't decided. And this Sookie curses… a lot. Heart!

I don't own them.

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**Chapter 1: Man, I am One Hot Toddy! **

Sookie was jumping from one foot to the other with her hands squeezed between her thighs, glaring at the man primping in the mirror, intensely focused on his reflection. "John Anthony Quinn, I have _got_ to pee, if you don't get away from that mirror and out of this bathroom in five seconds, so help me God!"

Quinn lifted one side of his mouth into a perfect crooked grin, but never met her eyes in the mirror. "Sook, you know if I don't shave I start to look like Teen Wolf on a full moon," he stated and continued plucking his eyebrows to an almost alien perfection.

"First of all, you aren't even shaving, _love_," she growled hopping madly about in the door frame. "And second of all my eyes are turning yellow from all of that pathetic excuse for sweet tea they serve here." She lunged into the room wildly and grabbed handfuls of Quinn's shirt, pulling him out of the only bathroom in their small cottage house. He yielded to her demands, plucking one last stray hair as she dragged him out of the room and deposited him in the hallway, slamming the door behind her. As she struggled with her zipper and yanked her pants down to the immense relief of her bladder she wondered how she got here.

Here being Colorado. Estes freaking Park, Colorado. She looked out the small picture window as she flushed and rinsed her hands, sighing at the delicate flakes that danced down from the sky. The thick tree line was probably only thirty feet away and the aspens and evergreens were dazzling as they sparkled in their snowy finery. The cottony powder touched everything here, and she really did love the feel of this place. It was so isolated it was almost as though she was in some strange fairy tale, and this really wasn't her life at all. Why? Because it just didn't feel like home. It was so foreign from the moist heat of New Orleans, her home of so many years- her first _real_ love.

Sookie wiped her hands on the tattered but well-loved hand towel that hung from the rack on the wall. It seemed that almost everything in this house was tattered and well-loved. Not that there was anything wrong with that. In fact, she had never really had that much to begin with, so in that way this house reminded her deeply of her Gran's home, her childhood home, back in Bon Temps. Her stomach began to clench when she thought of her grandmother and Bon Temps, which always seemed to be the case lately, but Sookie just glared at her weakness in the mirror, tucking a strand of pale hair behind her ear and wandered out to tell Quinn he could get back to his grooming.

Sookie found Quinn tapping his fingers on the small desk that served as their office space as he looked at his listings online. He was half-dressed and she stared at the expanse of olive skin and strength and muscle that composed Quinn's body and sighed at his beauty. He was a complete juxtaposition of heat and warmth to the soft and dismal day.

Life with Quinn was good… it worked. Even if he did spend more time in the mirror than she did, even if she and he were so very different in nature… he was a good man. And that counted for a lot with Sookie. He cared for her. Great… everything was great. And things were relatively easy with him. It had seemed that nothing came easy in Sookie's life until she let him into her heart. Everything was great…

Quinn whipped his head around from where he was perusing the internet and grinned. Sookie realized that he knew she was there all along, and he was allowing her to eye-fuck him at her leisure. He narrowed his purple eyes at her and was at her side with an almost inhuman grace. Her heart lurched a little as he collected her into him, making her feel like a doll in his arms. He inhaled deeply in her hair then kissed her nose and strutted off to the bathroom, his high firm ass making Sookie lightheaded in his wake.

"Fucking Quinn," Sookie mouthed as she made her way to the garage. Her emotions were like this more often than not when it came to her new life. She was up and then down, pissed and then horny, elated and depressed. She wondered how one person could contain all of those feelings and not spontaneously combust.

She had been in Estes Park for a good six months, and now that it was officially winter there was something she was dying to try. She rifled through the still packed boxes and half-finished projects in the garage and grinned victoriously when she found what she was looking for. _Hell, yes! _She was one part excited to two parts nervous as she extricated the pair of cross country skis and set them on a bare patch of concrete. Biting her lip she located the matching boots they had picked up at a second-hand store in town and set them beside the skis. _Can I do this without killing myself?_ She wondered. Sookie thanked God that Quinn was heading out soon for a showing, because he would surely give her shit until the end of time if she sucked at this. He certainly still remembered the Alpine Slide incident of 2008 with perfect total recall, much to her chagrin. No, it was better if he didn't know she was about to try this, and she figured she should attempt to do this without his knowledge, so she left the equipment and wandered back in the house to wait for his departure.

Twenty minutes later Sookie was on her second Hot Toddy (heavy on the Toddy) when Quinn emerged from the bathroom, looking shiny as a new toy.

"I just _feel_ this commission coming on," he grinned as he sauntered to her side. She gasped as he took a breast in his enormous hand, though it was really more like a paw, and kissed her roughly. "I'll be back in a few hours. Be ready, I have plans for us tonight."

Sookie gulped as she watched him load his enormous form into his Dodge Ram and out of sight.

Quinn was quickly making his mark on the high-end real estate market in the area. Sookie wasn't surprised though. It seemed that he could make himself fit in with any situation that presented itself. Rich divorcees all vied for his attention, asking to visit far more listings than Sookie deemed reasonable. The Porsche driving men (though whomever in their right mind would drive a Porsche in the frigging Rocky Mountains seemed like an idiot) who were searching for winter homes treated Quinn like a long lost frat brother, hoping he would introduce them to the gold-digging sugar baby set. Sookie despised that set. They like Quinn too. _Bitches, _Sookie thought as she poured some straight Toddy, fuck the Hot, and tossed back it back, pushing faces and memories out of her mind.

***

After satisfying her nerves with two additional Toddies for the road, Sookie threw on her winter gear and shoved her feet in the books and skis, attempting to stand up. The drinks had apparently affected her more than she realized, because as she pushed her weight up vertically she immediately fell back down onto the crunchy snow. "Fucking Poles!" she shouted to no one in particular and scooted on her side to where she had left the poles leaning against their mailbox. She grabbed the poles and stabilized herself feeling independent and free, sans the giant sticks stuck to the soles of her feet. Despite the gentle caress of the falling snow, the sun was bright on her back and Sookie flicked the sunglasses out of her pocket so she wouldn't get snow blind. She didn't actually know anyone who had actually gone snow blind, but damn if that didn't sound like a shitty way to go blind.

_Okay, so what? I just walk around? How is this fun?_

Sookie and Quinn lived on a nice two acres of land, a perk to taking care of his mother's home while she sat in jail. To be honest, it wasn't like they were taking care of the home anymore; his mother had been in jail for so long. It was basically Quinn's house, and Sookie had made it a home when he convinced her to move to Colorado with him. But wouldn't you know it; Mama Quinn was up for parole in a month. Oh, that had led to some interesting dinner discussions. Sookie's breeding begged her to keep her mouth shut on the subject, but if she were to speak freely she would tell you she wished they would just let the bitch rot.

Sookie fell on her ass just as she was starting to find her rhythm. "Son of a mother trucker," she growled as she sat, the world swirling above her in yellows and whites and grays. Sookie drunkenly attempted to right herself again and stood up, wobbling a little and waiting for the world to stop spinning before pushing off again over the snow. It was actually very relaxing, and Sookie could feel her head clearing with each movement. All she could hear was the sound of her skis and the noisy silence of a world at peace around her.

"Gaahhh!" Sookie garbled as she tripped herself on a rock that jutted out of the snow and tumbled back over. "That shit is gonna leave a mark," she said to herself as she grabbed the place on her shin that had probably already bruised and swelled. Sookie allowed the ridiculousness of the situation to take root and she lay back on her downy, cold pillow and giggled as she peered up at the sun. She let the day cocoon her and her mind lazily traversed the plane of her memory.

_Before Quinn there was Bill. They had met their first day at college. _

_Sookie worked so hard in high school, and was damn lucky it paid off with a scholarship because her loon of a mom left her with her with nothing on the doorstep of her Grandmother Adele's home when she was all of three years old. Oh, yeah. And she never came back. Sookie never had the pleasure of making her father's acquaintance. Not that she gave a shit; her pops was probably just one in a long line of the losers her 'mother' had screwed. So she didn't miss what she never had, and in a way she was luckier to have been with her Gran than she ever would have been with her genetic mother. _

_Adele pushed Sookie to do well, and just about had a stroke when Sookie came in with her acceptance letter to Tulane that last semester of high school. Two months later, mid summer vacation, Adele had the actual stroke that killed her, and Sookie lost the only mother she had ever known. _

_Desperate for a respite from the physical reminder of the fact that she had nothing, she fled to New Orleans. She arrived three weeks early and had nowhere to go, so she showed up on the doorstep of the resident life building carrying two suitcases and a photo of her Gran. She knocked timidly, and when she heard nothing she dropped her bags on the step and let herself in._

_She ran a hand through her windblown hair and cursed at herself for thinking she could just show up and expect them to take her in like the stray she was. "Idiot!" she muttered, trying to decide if she could afford one night at a hotel or if she would just have to drive all the way back tonight…. Back to the home that she hated, that was filled with memories and dreams, and that was emptier than her pocketbook. She felt the burning of tears threatening her lids as she tried to hold herself together long enough to make it back to her car. _

"_It is a little early to be calling me an idiot, I would have to presume. Perhaps once you get to know me…" The voice of a southern gentleman, ripped from the movie screens interrupted her musings. She blinked furiously and located the source of the voice. _

_Bill was working as a Resident Assistant in one of the summer dorms, and became her hero that night as he managed to sneak her into his building and into one of the empty dorm rooms for the remainder of the summer, even procuring her a meal card so he knew she was eating. _

_When the semester started, she and her new roommate Pam found themselves on Bill's floor, and Sookie knew it was no coincidence. She quickly found a friendship in Pam and a lover in Bill, and she clung to these things as anchors in the tidal wave of her life. _

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**A/N** So I actually went to a Goddess night where we all got drunk and attempted to x-country ski at midnight. I swear I have several bones that will never heal. LOL! What's the most ridiculous thing you've ever attempted while drinking (and don't say driving!)?

Please review so I can know if you like the story in a story concept. Thanks!


	2. Chapter 2: Making a Scene of the Crime

**A/N **Here is Chapter Two, Jeopardy style. Thanks for reading! I am glad you liked the weird format of this fic so far… shall we see how this plays out? Real time is plain script; _story-in-story is in italics._ Don't know why this didn't update on the story listing, so I am republishing. Sorry for the inconvenience!

Oh, and I don't own them!

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Chapter Two: Making a /Scene/of the Crime

Sookie felt the snow melting onto the bits of skin that were exposed to the elements. They trailed lazy paths down her pants and shirt, the hot and cold sensations toying with her drunken equilibrium. She sighed and unclipped the skis from her boots walking stiffly back to the house.

_Okay, maybe better try that sober_, she thought as she dumped the skis and stripped for a bath. The water here took forever to get hot, and she put her hand in the stream eight times before the water was warm enough to sustain human life. She could only imagine what Quinn had lined up for the evening's "Big Plans." No, she could definitely imagine what the plans would include: Mama Rose's and a drive around the national park. There were really only a few nice restaurants in town, if you weren't counting the hotels which Sookie rarely did because that ass-juggling dick burglar Debbie Pelt worked at the Stanley Hotel and Sookie would avoid her drunk-donkey face at all costs.

As Sookie washed and dressed her wounds she swallowed back bile thinking of the night a few days after Quinn convinced her to move in with him.

_Quinn had his oven mitt hand over Sookie's eyes. _

"_I thought you'd want to see the crown jewel of Estes…"_

_He felt her raise her brows beneath his hand and chuckled. "Yes, Estes Park has a crown jewel. Everything has a crown jewel." His voice became stern, "Now, no peeking." With his free hand, he gently steered her by the small of her back. "Okay, there are a few steps here… just lift your foot….there…oops…"_

_Sookie had caught her foot on the first step and was trying to figure out how to blindly catch her body without breaking her face off when Quinn's sure hands caught her mid-face plant and threw her easily up into his arms. "Keep your eyes closed," he growled and she felt her stomach flutter on the raw edges of his voice. She complied, excited by the newness of the situation and safe in his arms._

_He deftly mounted the steps and Sookie felt the warmth rush out to meet her and a golden hue snuck in the seams of her closed eyelids. She also heard voices, which were getting quieter and quieter. Silence. _

"_Umm, Quinn?" she mumbled, anxious at the deafening silence. She felt his hot breath on her face, and he planted a kiss sweetly on her lips. He tasted wild, and buttery, and like the night, and she relaxed in his arms- forgetting she was for all intents and purposes blindfolded and only God knew where. She was sucking his tongue in greedily when a sharp throat clearing interrupted them. _

_Sookie flushed scarlet and whispered, "Can I open my eyes yet?" _

_Quinn placed a final peck on her forehead. "Sorry sugar, I got carried away. Open your eyes!" His voice boomed, and any noise that was remaining shuddered to a dead silence. Quinn definitely knew how to own a room. Sookie was still cradled in his arms as she peered out from behind her lashes. _

"_Wow, Quinn," was all she could say as she took in the enormous entryway where he held her. It was like something from a movie, and every eye in the room was trained on her and the enormous, purple-eyed man holding her. _

_Quinn sidled up to the registration desk, Sookie tucked in his arms like a child. "John Quinn, party of two, checking in."_

_The concierge, seemingly mystified at the display shook her head quickly as if to clear her thoughts and responded, the consummate professional, "Welcome to the Stanley Hotel."_

_***_

Sookie smiled as she remembered and dressed for dinner, rifling through her and his things messily strewn about the closet. She knew they should each take a side or have some other sort of normal system, but they were both too busy and probably a little too lazy to spend time worrying about sides of a closet or color-coding their ensembles. It had always been that way with them since they met; no clear lines of boundary, nothing too permanent.

Estes hadn't known what hit it when Quinn returned to town with his strange and free-spirited girlfriend. Sookie didn't really think she was a free-spirit. She was just to the point in her life that she said 'fuck it,' and preferred over-used sayings like 'let the chips fall as they may.' What was the other one? 'The best laid plans of mice and men…'

She was where she was because that was where she was supposed to be. And right now, she was supposed to be in Estes freaking Park, Colorado.

She decided that she hated the snow tonight and flipped off the window as she settled on a pair of white wool pants and a sky blue cardigan for the night ahead. Her thoughts drifted back to that night so many months ago.

_Quinn threw her on the bed in their hotel room. "What do you think, babe?"_

_Sookie cut him off with a look that could have castrated a Spanish bull. _

_Quinn grimaced and said, "_Sookie._ What do you think of the room, _Sook_?" Sookie despised the term 'babe' and it had taken her a good year and a half to wean him off of it. The term just seemed stuck to him like mold on a decrepit loaf of bread. And obviously, it still popped out occasionally like an inappropriate fart. _

"_I will let that one fly this time, _John_, but next time there will be a punishment involved," she said haughtily, a grin teasing the corners of her lips. _

"_Oh, you will, will you?" He grabbed her ankles and pulled her roughly to the end of the bed. She shrieked playfully. "Interesting. But you never answered my question."_

_She pulled her ankles out of his grip and popped up onto her knees, launching herself into Quinn's arms. "I love it. It's beautiful, like something I could only dream of. Thank you for taking me here, I know this must have cost a ton."_

"_Connections my love, connections. You would be surprised at the deal I got." She didn't know what to say to that, and leaned back to look at his face. He looked proud of himself, so she said nothing. "Dinner is in five minutes, love, so if you need to get ready do so. You know how much I hate being late."_

_Sookie wrinkled her nose. Oh, she knew all too well how much Quinn hated being late. He was so lax about some things, yet completely anal retentive about others. _

_Three and a half minutes later, Sookie and Quinn walked through the doors of the Cascades Restaurant, ushered in by a hostess whose eyes lingered a bit too long on Quinn's ass, and Sookie imagined taking the girl's tomato red hair in her fist and using it to slam her against the marble bar top. Something must have flashed in her eyes, because when she pulled her brain out of her moment of insanity a stylish girl with a sympathetic smile caught her eye from a few tables over and winked. Sookie shyly smiled back, embarrassed to have been caught but happy to have a show of support, even if it was from a stranger._

_Quinn and Sookie enjoyed a leisurely meal and Quinn regaled her with stories of his youth misspent in the backwoods of Rocky Mountain National Park. He told her of strange encounters with local hunters and wildlife. She laughed heartily and found her attention drifting back to the girl, well the _couple_ at the table a few seats away. She had the strangest feeling that the woman and her dinner guest were watching them as much, if not much more than she was watching them. She couldn't see the male's face from her seat, but it was almost as though he had a gaze that permeated the skin on her back. It was like he could tear through the fabric of her clothes, the skin on her back with the heat of his focus. _

_Sookie and Quinn were about to order dessert when she saw the couple stand up to exit. She sighed in relief as she felt the man's stare break contact with her body and Quinn looked at her quizzically. "What's up? You seem a little distracted."_

"_Nothing, I think I'm just really in need of a little something for my sweet tooth. What do you recommend?"_

_Quinn grinned mischievously and leered in that way that only a man can make look completely perverted. "Oh, I have something sweet you can suck on if…."_

_A voice all sugary sweet interrupted Quinn's proposition. "Sorry to interrupt you, but we haven't seen many other people our age out tonight, so we wondered if you wanted company for dessert?"_

_Quinn growled under his breath audibly as he swung his head around to see who dared interrupt future lovemaking. Sookie realized then that the couple had not left the premises but had instead invited themselves to join their party. She glanced at Quinn to gauge his reaction. _

_Always the gregarious social butterfly, Quinn quickly replaced all traces of frustration with good-natured humor. "Well, Sookie and I here were just debating the merits of a good sweet tooth. You are more than welcome to join us."_

_The couple pulled out the remaining chairs at their table to Sookie's left and right, as Quinn had chosen the seat across from her. Sookie finally got her first look at the woman's guest. He was rugged, huge, and entirely male with a shock of curly dark hair and vivid green eyes to boot. The earthiness that exuded from him made her breath catch in her throat, and if Quinn weren't such a tiger in the sack she wouldn't have thought twice about jumping his bones. _

_His gaze was locked with hers and she blushed when he cocked his head at her in curiosity. Luckily, neither of the others at the table noticed this exchange and Sookie focused her attention back on her boyfriend. Quinn was introducing himself to the woman whom Sookie was to learn was named Debbie Pelt. _

"_And this is my companion, Alcide Herveaux," she stated, "And though I still go my surname, Pelt, Alcide assures me he is working on turning me into a Herveaux soon." She winked at Sookie conspiratorially. "And who is this beautiful woman?" she asked Quinn. "Your wife?"_

_Quinn smirked at Sookie from across the table, "This scrumptious morsel is Sookie Stackhouse, my girlfriend."_

_Debbie's eyes lit up as she drank Quinn in with rapt attention. "Well, isn't that something." Sookie narrowed her eyes at Debbie but was distracted by a light touch on her hand. _

_Sookie turned wide-eyed to the man, Alcide, sitting beside her. "You have a little something…" he said quietly, his voice rough yet light, like an upside down field of wheat. "Here…" He reached out a hand with a soft napkin to brush dinner's remnants off of the corner of her mouth. _

_The touch burned her like his gaze had from across the dining room. Sookie jerked her head back at the sensation, but he didn't release her gaze from his. "Fuck," he whispered to himself and with considerable effort broke off the eye contact to turn to speak with Quinn. _

_Sookie was frozen in place, a finger tracing the corner of her mouth when Debbie cut in on her ruminations. "He's almost magical, huh?"_

_Sookie turned quickly to the woman to dodge her embarrassment, but she was staring at Quinn like he was breath and she was underwater. "Mmm hmm," Sookie agreed, thinking of the fiery touch that ignited something she thought long dead, only to find it was simply dormant- waiting to be born again. _

_Eventually the group fell into an almost easy (but not quite) banter. It turned out Debbie was actually head of sales for the Stanley Hotel, and Alcide was co-founder of a company that built residences for only the most elite clientele in the booming mountain market. Quinn, never one to pass up an opportunity began to eagerly discuss partnering strategies, and Sookie nervously bit her lip as the two talked about possibilities for the future. Sookie couldn't bite back the building feeling that the face Debbie Pelt wore didn't quite mirror the person who lived within the confines of her body. Debbie tried her best to pull off a polite, interested front as she asked Sookie what she thought about the town, and about her life back in Louisiana. But every time she thought Sookie was otherwise engaged Debbie would lay a suggestive hand on Quinn's shoulder or thigh, grinning wickedly all the while like a rabid fox. _

_The drinks kept coming and the group got louder, more extroverted. "Another bottle of the Shafer," Alcide announced to the passing server. "My treat. Let me take care of your meal, you have been such good company." _

_Sookie gulped; glad because there was no way they would have been able to afford even a bottle of water off of the mini-bar if they had to pay for all of the wine they were drinking. "A toast then!" Quinn roared into the empty dining room, as they were the last table seated. "From our new friends!" _

_The server poured four glasses of the decadent cabernet. Alcide stood up and I marveled at the sheer size of the man. His low drawl permeated the smooth emptiness of the room and it was then I realized he even _had_ an accent. "Tonight I make a toast to hmm… Loving the one you're with…"_

_Debbie stood up, across the table. "Dreaming of the one who is far..."_

They've done this before,_Sookie thought as the duo finished together, "And fucking everyone in between!" Debbie slunk around the table and Alcide picked her up by her ass and gave her the good kind of tongue lashing. The kind you only see in porn. _

_Sookie and Quinn stared across the table at each other, then at the strange couple, and then at each other again. Multiply that equation a few dozen times and you'll get the gist of the scenario they witnessed. Sookie was trying to figure out how to lift her jaw off the carpet when Debbie disentangled her mouth from Alcide's long enough to form a sentence. _

"_You wouldn't care to join us, would you?"_

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**A/N **Thanks for reviewing Chapter 1, and for the Adds and PMs telling me to get my ass in gear with Dead Silence. Gonna try to work on it again tonight……. I will let you know how it goes……

What's the best proposition you've ever received? Click the green button and tell me your secrets!


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